Application of a mini radar network for dust-devil monitoring for tourist sites: the example of the Summer Palace, Beijing

ABSTRACT

With the development of tourism, the security of tourist sites is becoming greatly important for travelers. However, unstable weather conditions can often generate latent hazardous whirlwinds. Dust devils are such minor whirlwinds which can of course put tourists in considerable danger. This paper presents an effective dust-devil monitoring system and, as an example, reports on its application at the Summer Palace in Beijing, China. The proposed method uses three mini weather radars to form non-collinear observations. Through comparison with the conventional volume velocity processing (VVP) wind retrieval algorithm, we are able to demonstrate the superiority and advantages of the proposed approach, thus showing promise for use in other tourist sites and for protecting the lives and property of tourists.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank two anonymous referees, editor and administrator of the journal for very constructive comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [41275043, 41675029]; National Basic Research Program of China [2013CB430102]; Research and Innovation Project for College Graduates of Jiangsu Province of China [KYLX16_0947]; China Commonwealth Industry Research Project [GYHY201306078]; Open Research Funding Program of KLGIS [2015A01].